Tight G.O.P. Primaries Suggest Less-Predictable South

Rick Santorum greeted the staff behind the counter of the Sweet Peppers Deli in Tupelo, Miss.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — They stood beneath a Saturn V rocket, baby-carrying mothers, cross-armed men, workers in coveralls and financial planners, listening as Rick Santorum told them who they were and why they mattered.

“Red Alabama,” he said to the crowd on Thursday at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville. “Conservative Alabama. The heart of conservatism.”

Along with his rivals Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, Mr. Santorum is pressing hard here and in Mississippi before a vote on Tuesday that could narrow the field in the Republican nominating contest or help prolong it into the coming weeks and months. But a victory is about more than just delegates — it will give the winner a claim on the Deep South, or as Mr. Santorum described it, the heart of conservatism.

But the Deep South base is not as predictable as it once was. National polling companies have found a volatile contest in Alabama and Mississippi, a near toss-up among the three leading candidates. And indeed the primaries represent a rather neat slicing of the Southern electorate at the current moment.

Is this fertile ground for Mr. Santorum, whose commanding victory in Tennessee last week was largely attributable to evangelical Christian voters? Or are Alabama and Mississippi voters more like those in South Carolina, who relished Mr. Gingrich’s fire-breathing style?

Or will voters here, particularly evangelicals, do what may have been unthinkable just years ago and support a Mormon from a Northeastern state who sells his corporatist approach to fixing the economy and claims he is the most electable? Mr. Romney’s promising poll numbers should not come as a shock in the South of today, Mr. Ball said.

“Southern politics has really shifted,” he said, pointing out the electoral success of Republican governors like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who ran on a platform of technocratic competence, and Bill Haslam of Tennessee, a moderate.

Evidence of that shift can be seen in a matter of a few blocks.

In a booth at Jean’s Restaurant in Meridian, Miss., Burnie Berrey, a 50-year-old elevator service technician, had some choice words for the Obama administration. Like many here, he is essentially a one-issue voter: the man who can beat President Obama is the man for him, even if that means eventually voting for Mr. Romney. The antipathy toward the current administration among Republican voters, described here in terms ranging from the vulgar to the apocalyptic, can hardly be exaggerated.

But he is hardly more complimentary of Mr. Romney.

“He’s just Obama all over again,” Mr. Berrey said. “I would prefer Newt get it. He knows how the government runs, and he’s damn smarter than the rest of them.”

Nobody taps into the old fighting strain of Southern politics like Mr. Gingrich, who styles himself as an intellectual brawler who can outsmart the know-it-alls in Washington. If the primary had been held a month ago, Mr. Gingrich would probably have won in a walk, and even those who are leaning away from supporting him are not quite ready to let go completely.

“In the back of your mind you know what’s coming,” said Chandler Castle, a 32-year-old from Meridian who works in construction. “But,” he added wistfully, as if speaking of an aging prize fighter, “I just want to see Newt and Obama in a debate.”

Photo

Children snapped photographs of Rick Santorum as he met with voters on Sunday during a stop at the Sweet Peppers Deli.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times

Mr. Castle, waiting two blocks away for what would be a trademark Gingrich tub-thumping speech on Friday, said the people in his circles were mostly undecided, though nobody liked Mr. Romney. Mr. Castle said that the objection was not Mr. Romney’s religion — “as time goes by that’s less and less important, except for some parts of the South,” he said — but just a sense that he could not be trusted as a conservative standard-bearer.

Mr. Romney has won endorsements from the governor of Mississippi and a raft of senior lawmakers in Alabama, where polls show him running competitively. This surprised some here, who said they knew very few people who were voting for him.

But even skeptics acknowledge that it may come down to what circles they travel in. Will Simmons, a 38-year-old lawyer who was at the Gingrich rally in Mississippi with Mr. Castle, acknowledged that Mr. Romney was not exactly exciting. But, he said, “Romney is a guy that makes things happen,” echoing the most common sentiment expressed by Romney supporters, who, like Mr. Simmons, tend to be professionals.

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While all of the candidates appeal, to a degree, to some part of the Southern electorate, few voters find any of them just right. Southerners speak with fondness of past candidates who were more obvious fits for the region, like Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won five Southern states in the 2008 primaries before dropping out, or Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who chose not to run for president last spring.

A common wish is for some combination of the three current frontrunners, a candidate described by one caller to an Alabama talk radio show as having Mr. Romney’s looks, Mr. Gingrich’s brains and Mr. Santorum’s moral fiber.

“Newt, he’s consistent with his beliefs until he changes his mind,” said Cleveland Poole, the head of the Republican Party in Butler County, Ala. “Santorum seems to be more and more at ease in getting his message out, but his problem is he’s more likable than he is presidential.”

Mr. Poole said he knew some Romney supporters, but they were all in the Republican establishment. “Everybody that I talk to says that they flip-flop back and forth every day,” he said.

Tuesday’s primaries have taken on an outsize significance in the long nominating contest, with Mr. Gingrich saying that he needs to win both states, fueling speculation that a defeat here may push him out of the race. For Mr. Santorum, victory here could achieve his goal of turning the battle into a two-man contest between him and Mr. Romney.

Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich campaigned in Mississippi on Sunday, with Mr. Santorum using a campaign appearance in Gulfport to attack what he portrayed as Mr. Romney’s moderate stances on fiscal issues and climate change.

In Alabama, many voters, like Mr. Ball, consider Mr. Santorum the favorite, despite frequently expressed concerns about his ability to win in the fall. Some supporters, like Chris Crutchfield, a 30-year-old from Huntsville who sells firefighting equipment, are frustrated by the notion that Mr. Santorum’s backers are driven only by social issues.

“He’s got a great economic plan,” Mr. Crutchfield said, though he acknowledged that as an evangelical he was left uneasy by Mr. Romney’s religion as well as Mr. Gingrich’s marital history.

At his rally at the space center, where children wearing “I Support the Fair Tax” stickers gazed at the space hardware, Mr. Santorum drew cheers when he praised home-schooling, but also when he talked of the evils of overregulation.

One man spoke approvingly of Mr. Santorum’s emphasis on family values, mainly because he thought it could attract Hispanic voters in the general election.

For all the talk about conservative leadership, electability is still foremost on many Southern voters’ minds. Mr. Castle said even after the Gingrich speech in Meridian that he was still looking for an alternative to Mr. Romney. However, he said, “It’s who you want and who you settle for.”

Trip Gabriel contributed reporting from Gulfport, Miss.

A version of this article appears in print on March 12, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Tight Primaries Suggest Less-Predictable South. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe